Daydreams
by Morbane
Summary: Oneshot about a trainer, just pretending, and an Eevee. Was written for LightningStrike as a birthday fic. Loosely connected to Defenders of the Badge.


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Written for Lightning-Strike's birthday. 

Other fanfiction projects are still going forward (slowly) but I wrote this fic for a friend, L-S. It is short-ish, a one-shot, and about a trainer and an eevelution. You might recognise them for their small (so far) part in another fic of mine. 

Daydreams

On its way to the Nature Park, the bus stopped to allow one passenger off, and that passenger waited for it to drive off around a corner before checking his gear and making sure he had everything he needed.

Then the dark-haired boy turned and walked through the main gate of Lyllic Breeding Home, and followed a signpost to Reception. The path took him through a sort of garden walk, where shrubs served as the borders between different Pokémon fields. 

It presented a good image of the breeder clinic. "It's going to be expensive," said Jasper, quietly, to himself. He felt a little guilty. He didn't know what his parents would think when they found out that he'd used his mail-delivery savings to buy a prize Pokémon, when trainers' starters could be got from a local Professor far less expensively. Especially since Jasper had done some odd jobs for Professor Cypress for a few months. 

He told the receptionist that he wanted one Pokémon, a fairly young one, for training. He held out the approval letter from Professor Cypress, and when the receptionist had read it, he nodded, and told Jasper to follow him.

Jasper was led along a corridor, that opened out into a sort of courtyard. In the middle of it was a sort of sturdy, grassy garden, and around each wall were small doors like cat-flaps. 

From his studies, Jasper knew that each door would be psychically coded to a specific Pokémon, or specific type of Pokémon. You tended to learn those kinds of things, working with Professor Cypress. They'd need to have a psychic working here permanently, he thought, to use systems like that. 

The Pokémon in this courtyard were a variety of smaller types. There were no common types, such as Rattata, and no birds. The staff member sat on a bench next to a Vulpix, who seemed to recognise him, and willingly let itself be stroked. 

Vulpix weren't a species that Jasper could ever afford to buy from a breeder, he knew. 

The Pokémon he saw were engaged in docile activities, napping, or playing quietly with each other. Jasper's gaze travelled over Cleffa and Nidoran, Teddiursa and Sandshrew. There was even a Squirtle. 

A lone Eevee half-sat, half-stood near the wall, right next to a small door that Jasper guessed was its own. If Eevee were capable of such an expression, Jasper suspected that the creature was frowning - in a puzzled sort of way.

Alone of all of them, it felt Jasper's gaze, and looked up at him for a moment with very dark eyes before looking back at its companions. 

Eevee, too, were a costly species, but Jasper felt like asking anyway. "That Eevee over by the wall..?"

The man looked up from the Vulpix. "Oh," he said. He named a price that fell far below Jasper's estimate. When Jasper looked sharply at him, he added, "He's not really one of ours. He's a little terror. We caught him a few weeks ago - he's been making a nuisance of himself around the place. He seemed to be attracted to the other Pokémon. But he doesn't mix very well with them."

Jasper noted again the puzzled look in the Eevee's eyes as he watched the others. 

He's still expensive, thought Jasper, but not much more than a purebred Sandshrew or Swinub would be. 

He took his hands out of his pockets and walked over to the Eevee. It looked up at his approach, and away again. 

"Would you like a trainer?" 

The Eevee's ears pricked. Jasper didn't think that the little fox understood the word, but suspected he had heard it before. 

"We're going back to the wilderness," Jasper told the Eevee. "To the forest. For a while."

"He's got the Swift TM. I'll give you a Pokéball for him," the staff member said. Jasper nodded, and paid the money, and took the Eevee, and walked out of the clinic. 

Later, the staff member remembered that the new Pokéball had hung all by itself on Jasper's belt. The new trainer didn't have any other balls, not even empty ones. 

v v v

Jasper just walked, and he kept walking. He didn't let the Eevee out right away, but as soon as he left the main forest track, and found a clearing, he stopped, and released his first Pokémon in front of him. 

Northwest of the central-Johto Nature Park is Cloverville, and from the town's border to great distances north and west, a real forest spreads. It isn't tame like the Nature Park, nor does it have many straightforward paths through it. 

This was where Jasper and his new Pokémon were - safely inside the domain of the Knotwood. Although, to someone who'd grown up on its borders, it was no maze. 

"I'm not really a trainer," Jasper told the Eevee, "I just thought we could live out here for a while. Somehow, I thought you wouldn't mind the wilderness, but the other Pokémon back there might have."

The Eevee's ear twitched. 

"I'm not really a proper trainer, so I thought it seemed better not to get a proper starter Pokémon," Jasper said. "But I'll have to call you something. The breeder called you a terror. I think 'Deimos' is Greek for 'terror'. I'm not sure, though. But how about that? I think it sounds okay."

Deimos looked down at himself, and back up at his trainer. "Deimos," said Jasper, trying it out. "Deimos! Deimos."

"Ve!" 

The Eevee was frowning its frown at him. "I talk too much anyway," said Jasper. "I guess you'll have to get used to it. I'm not very good at my survival skills, either. I've got a tent, and food, and so on, but I was hoping that I could learn survival stuff by watching you. And other Pokémon, and so on."

Deimos twitched an ear. 

"Okay, maybe not, but... Well, I'm not going to do anything really dangerous out here, and I think I'll learn as I go along."

In the end, he had to get Deimos's help to put up the tent. The Eevee helped because of curiousity. Jasper got him to pull a few guy ropes, and by the time Deimos got bored of it, the job was simple enough for Jasper to continue easily. 

Deimos wasn't impressed by the food Jasper had bought. When night fell, he disappeared. Jasper realised a second after the Pokémon left, and he sat down, and he cursed. 

He wouldn't find the Eevee now. It was nearly dark. What help he could get to search for the missing Pokémon would be useless, since he was deep enough in the Knotwood and it wouldn't arrive quickly enough. 

The loss depressed him. 

But he didn't despair immediately, and he left the tent flap open, trying to ignore the mosquitoes. Eventually, he fell asleep, and when he woke up, once, during the night, he felt a warmth at his feet. It roused when he poked it very gently, with a toe, and it stretched and shook itself. It settled down again. 

Deimos was staying. 

v v v

Deimos seemed to find Jasper's slow reactions and bad cooking fairly annoying. He whined at Jasper when he thought the boy was doing something stupid, and sometimes nipped him when he got really irked. Trail-blazing wasn't one of Jasper's strong points, although he could find his way around their section of the forest easily enough, and he wasn't very good at finding wild Pokémon to challenge either. 

Not that they did a lot of training. They walked, in the daytime, Jasper moving steadily and Deimos keeping up. When they stopped for lunch, Deimos eventually allowed Jasper to check his pads for thorns and comb his tail out again. 

"Don't act so surprised," Jasper complained, one of the first times he tried this. "You must have been brushed three times a day back at the breeder's."

Deimos glanced at him, and flicked an ear, as if to say - that was then, this is now. 

Jasper did a lot of daydreaming, and would come out of almost a trance to find Deimos watching him, fascinated. He daydreamed about several things. Staying a kid, or finding a way to live like a hermit in this forest - if not forever, for a very long time. Finding a job that not only didn't bore him, but that both his parents approved. Actually having a girlfriend. Leaving the forest to find his parents impressed by the way he'd spent his summer, looking on it as a rite of passage or some way of him having grown up. Leaving the forest and actually feeling older and more confident, as if, a few months from now, he would have changed completely, in such a way that he could be sure of a Successful Life.

Deimos watched Jasper when he daydreamed, and played with things like leaves, that moved the way Jasper's thoughts did, unexpected and lively and swirling. 

Jasper knew he wasn't training Deimos the way a proper trainer would. Of course, Deimos was getting stronger, but without guidance. Sometimes, on a whim, Jasper would ask him to use an attack, usually on a tree or something. He told himself that he'd better make sure Deimos remembered all the moves he was supposed to know, but really, Jasper just liked watching Deimos's energy, and the speed with which he always attacked whatever it was. Deimos never hesitated. Jasper daydreamed that one day, they would meet an 'eevelution' in the forest, and Deimos would defeat it. 

v v v

The trees in the Knotwood were, as befitted the name, often gnarled and bent, leaning or unsymmetrical. But they were wonderful to climb. Jasper was sitting in one, one day, swinging his feet and watching Deimos race around the roots, just for fun, when another human appeared. It was a shock, for a moment, to Jasper. It was a girl he knew from Cloverville - she'd become a trainer last year, he recalled. 

"It's you!" Alana said. "I'll have to tell them that I saw you. Nice Pokémon. You haven't evolved it..."

"I haven't got an evolution stone," Jasper declared. At the bottom of the tree, Deimos stopped, and stared reproachfully up. The Eevee was becoming quite good at human vocabulary. He recognised the rather clumsy excuse. 

"Funny you got an Eevee, then, if that's what you wanted to evolve it to," Alana said. "Hey. How come it's your only Pokémon?"

She'd seen his belt. He glared at her. She put two and two together. 

"I guess you've been hiding out here all summer," she said, disgusted. "Pretending you're a trainer to everyone. If you're not really going to train your Eevee, maybe you should give it away."

He glared at her back, as she turned away without saying anything else. Nasty, obnoxious 'proper' trainer. She'd go back and tell his parents and his nice summer would be over. But was that a better idea than shocking them with the facts of what he'd been doing when he eventually came home? Maybe if he let her go and whine to them, they'd have time to get used to the idea by the time he came back...

But he was sure that Alana would convey her disgust as well as the truth, and salt it with words like 'idiot' and 'deceiving himself' and 'lazy'. Scowling, he slipped to the ground and watched her walk off. 

As she passed a tree, he daydreamed for a moment that he could get Deimos to shoot Swift around her so that her outline would be burned on the tree... That would give her a fright. It was a nice mental image.

Swift as thought, Deimos ran out from under the tree, after Alana. Surprised, Jasper dashed after him. Running silently, Deimos came up behind Alana and then paused, aiming. The Swift attack burst around Alana and hit the tree beyond her, burning into the surface of the bark a blurry silhouette. But not one starburst had touched her. 

Alana froze, faced with the silhouette. Her hands flew to her clothing - unharmed by the light-based Normal attack. She whirled. "Nice trick," she said. "Trainers don't attack humans, though."

"Deimos only hit the tree," said Jasper. "He's quite good at hitting trees. We've had some practice in it."

She glared. Grudgingly, she nodded. 

Her Pokéballs clinked slightly on her belt as she turned back again. On a whim, Jasper called out. "By the way, have you got a spare Pokéball? I ran out."

"Oh, okay." She tossed one over her shoulder. 

Jasper caught it, grinning. He waited until Alana had really gone until he turned to Deimos. "I didn't know you could do that!" he grinned. Deimos's Eevee face also twitched into a sort of laugh. It occurred to Jasper that while he'd seen the little fox frown, look puzzled, and look content, this was the first Eevee-grin. With it, Deimos seemed to say, Do which?

Jasper thought. He tried to summon another daydream. He daydreamed himself into the picture, thinking, staring at something. Projecting it? His eyes cleared and he looked back at Deimos. The grin was still there. The Eevee winked. 

v v v

Some weeks had passed. It was the middle of the night, and although he'd been woken up at this time before, Deimos grumbled at Jasper with a "Vee-eev!" as he was roused. 

"We're going night-hunting," Jasper said. "It's clear. You can see the stars. Come on." He hesitated, and then he took the Pokéball with him. 

They jogged along one of their tracks together. The stars were intense, and a half-moon was sinking in the west. 

They came across an Oddish which stood its ground, and Deimos defeated it. Swiftly and simply. They carried on. 

From the depths of an astoundingly old tree, a Zubat dived. Deimos dodged it. It came again. 

"Weaken it!" Jasper cried to Deimos. "I've got a spare Pokéball, haven't I?" Deimos looked puzzledly at him. Then he barked softly, and sprang again. 

Jasper watched the battle, looking for the right moment, and found one in which he could throw his ball. Deimos paused in that moment to watch it curve through the air, strike the Zubat, and tug him in. The ball spun in midair. It fell to the ground, and rolled in a tight circle, and stopped. 

Jasper ran to it. Deimos licked his cheek, tense with excitement as Jasper was. Jasper picked the Pokéball up, held it for a moment, and called out the Pokémon within.

Immediately, the half-weakened Zubat flapped into the safety of the trees. Jasper muttered, and fumbled at the ball. Its red tendril reached up into a tree and pulled the Zubat back, into the pink light, into the ball. 

Jasper laughed to himself, and turned to Deimos. The Eevee stared towards the west, with the moon reflecting in his eyes, and suddenly, its silver light flashed all around him. Its power enveloped him. Deimos swelled with it, and glowed, and re-formed. The light flowed into him as if sucked there by the darkness. Rings glowing, Jasper's Umbreon met his eyes, and watched his thought. Jasper could feel his Pokémon's presence in his mind, for just a moment, until a second later, it winked out. 

Jasper reached out to stroke the new form. The Umbreon's fur was impossibly sleek, his eyes a deep garnet with the same expression, that hadn't changed... Jasper was tremendously glad. 

This was a night of changes, but one thing would stay the same. 

"Let's go," he said out loud to Deimos. "This Zubat's weak, and I ran out of Potions, and anyway he needs to be registered to me as Trained." He thought the rest. Deimos nodded. 

Back at camp, it was easy enough to gather their stuff together. Deimos's night vision was, understandably, even better, and he was practised, now, at helping Jasper pull down the tent. They swept the campsite, leaving it bare. They jogged together along the Knotwood paths, keeping pace. 

Jasper began to think of a hot shower - hot water for showering in, for the first time in months. He thought about the new Pokémon hanging at his belt - finally, finally, his first capture. Some of his thoughts, Deimos shared.

The lights of the Pokémon Center had begun to show through the trees. 

-I hope you enjoyed it. :) This was a fic for Lightning-Strike; she's a talented writer too, so please go check out her fics! Hi to everyone else. :)


End file.
